


if you're so rich then pay for what you've done

by broadrippleisburning



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Joseph Kavinsky is His Own Warning, kavinsky survives the fourth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-04-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:07:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23423686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/broadrippleisburning/pseuds/broadrippleisburning
Summary: the silence in the aftermath was crushing, and he fell, a king dethroned, to the dirt of the fairground.
Kudos: 18





	if you're so rich then pay for what you've done

**Author's Note:**

> hows quarantine treating yall!!  
> this was in my drafts so i cleaned it up and was like fuck it its kavinksy hours  
> title from say anything's but a fleeting illness

It wasn't supposed to end like this. It had been a game, a taunt, a _challenge._ It had been a stupid and childish ploy for attention, but that was _all._

Kavinsky knew Ronan would take the bait, he knew he'd come, and come fighting. Kavinsky knew he wouldn't come out unscathed, but he thought all the damage would be to his own person.

He never imagined it would end with him alone, perched on the hood of the Mitsubishi, the _real_ Mitsubishi, or, as real as it got with Kavinsky.

Alone, standing on his beloved car, as he watched Ronan's nightmare beast careen out of control, colliding into the cluster of parked fakes, gleaming and ready, where his friends, his pack, his _family_ , sat idly by, waiting for things to turn to shit.

He never thought he'd have to watch as a dream-turned-nightmare-turned-real tore through the metal of the cars like they were _nothing,_ glass shattering and metal screaming, only to have his own creation of flame and smoke and hatred collided into the whole bloody mess, igniting dream and reality alike.

The silence in the aftermath was crushing, and he fell, a king dethroned, to the dirt of the fairground. _Coming down from a high_ they'd said, _too drunk realize what was happening_ they'd claimed. _Kavinsky didn't actually_ care _for them_ they'd believed.

The one thing that came as no surprise was Ronan _fucking_ Lynch, dreamer of dreams, denier of truths, left before the dust settled, left before he could take any responsibility, left like Kavinsky knew he would.

* * *

It had been two weeks since they had died, and Kavinsky was still seeing Proko everywhere he went, seeing all four of them, in the darkened corners of Henrietta, the smoke filled haze of his bedroom, still strewn with their possessions. Their cars were still parked behind the fairgrounds; nothing but charred skeletons of their metal frames remained, Kavinsky made sure of that. No dreams, he did it the old fashion way, with glass and kerosene and a lighter, and then sat in the field, drinking his way through whatever he had on hand, until his limbs were too heavy to move, and the heat from the flames burned his skin, and he fell into a deep, uneasy sleep, filled with visions of car crashes and wings of reaper's cloth.

There had been no funerals, no memorials, not in Henrietta at least, and Kavinsky hadn't been invited to any of the private services held by their families. There had been fingers pointed, and blame placed, and no one wanted to see the fucked up kid who they blamed for the death of their children while they laid their precious sons to rest.

In the morning he dusted the ash off of his clothes and climbed into the Mitsubishi, doing a few lines off the dashboard before peeling out of the field, speeding through abandoned back roads until he ran out of fuel. He left the car where it stopped, and walked back into town. His phone was dead in his pocket, and he knew, even if he charged it, there would be no messages, just a thousand pictures to remind him of a life that was no longer his.

The nights grew darker, and his temper grew shorter. He had been a wild and unruly king, kept in check by his princes, but they were dead and gone, though the night still demanded a ruler.

And rule he did, holding court in darkened corners and settling disputes with bloody brawls, requiring a tribute from those who wished to remain in his territory unscathed.

Kavinsky had been a menace, a vain little white boy with too much money and a pack of loyal friends, terrorizing the small town for the fun of it. No one saw him as a real danger. He was someone to avoid, someone to fear, but he had been predictable, he'd had limits.

Kavinsky without his pack of dogs was unrelenting, uncaring, and unstoppable.

* * *

Ronan stopped racing.

Kavinsky stopped waiting for him.

Prokopenko had always warned him that Ronan didn't care, that Ronan wouldn't blink an eye if they all died, and Kavinsky had laughed. But here they were, Ronan locked away safely in his steel castle, with his motley crew of king seekers.

Kavinsky had been a king, and Ronan had turned him down, spat at his feet. Ronan had laughed, told Kavinsky he was just rich, suburban trash with a god complex and a coke dependency, a Bulgarian mobster who wasn't worth his time, or the air he was breathing.

* * *

And so the countdown began. July bled into August and bets began on how long Kavinsky would last. He was burning out, and burning out _fast_. The police were getting tired of throwing him in a holding cell, and his infractions started stacking up.

Opinions on when he'd go varied. Some believed it was a matter of weeks, some believed he'd simply be thrown in jail and forgotten about, but everyone agreed he wouldn't be returning to Aglionby for his final year.

Even the townsfolk discussed casually how long the Kavinsky boy would last, he wasn't human to them, no one brought up the fact that he was a damaged seventeen year old kid who had lost his family, the only people who had truly cared about him, and the only people he'd truly cared _about_. To them he was nothing more than a worthless criminal, corrupting the youth and endangering the rest of the town with his reckless behaviour.

* * *

On August second, he crashed his Mitsubishi into the side of one of Aglionby Academy's pristine dorm rooms, the room formerly belonging to Prokopenko. He walked away bloody and disorientated, but alive.

On August fourth, he slashed the tires of Dick Gansey III's prized Camaro as it sat in the parking lot of Monmouth Manufactuing. It was a challenge, an invitation, and this time Kavinsky wasn't going to be the loser.

On August fifth, Ronan met him beneath the glowing red lights of a traffic stop on the edge of town, bursting with righteous fury and whatever else selfish assholes believed about themselves.

“Not so high and mighty without your pack of dogs, are you?” Lynch called over the roar of the engines, smirking ever so slightly.

Kavinsky wanted to climb out of his car and beat that smirk into a bloody pulp. He tightened his grip on his steering wheel, staring ahead and waiting for the light to turn green.

“You brought this on yourself man, they're dead because of _you_ ,” Ronan told him. At least the smirk was gone. “Take some fucking responsibility for once in your miserable life.”

The light changed to green and Kavinsky pulled ahead, tires screeching as he accelerated. Ronan wasn't far behind.

Suburban houses turned into rural farmland beside them, and Kavinsky laughed as Ronan began to fall behind, his confidence wavering as they drove further and further away from Henrietta.

As the road straightened he caught up, only faltering when they approached a sharp hairpin turn, braking hard as Kavinsky kept going, making no attempt to stop or turn or slow at all.

Ronan watched, heart pounding, as Kavinsky's Mitsubishi collided into the highway sign. He blinked and the Mitsubishi was on its roof, glass blown out across the road.

Kavinsky's signature white framed sunglasses had been flung from the wreck, resting on the pavement ten feet away, one lens cracked perfectly down the middle.

Through the empty windows and bent metal of the car he could make out the vague slump of Kavinsky's body, which had been thrown from his seat in the crash, face soaked in blood, and eyes open, stuck staring at the night sky.

Ronan flung the door of the BMW open, spewing the contents of his stomach on the road. He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand before reaching for his cell phone, hands shaking, as he dialed Gansey's number.

On August sixth, at 1:04 am Joseph Kavinsky was declared dead.

The news spread through the sleepy town quickly, and it was spoken of like a tragedy, and they all consoled the poor Lynch boy who had found the body, and they all acted as if they hadn't been praying for Kavinsky's death the entire time, and they ignored all the obvious signs pointing suicide, instead using it to urge caution. It was a warning, _you don't want to turn out like that Kavinsky boy,_ do you? _He broke the rules and thought he was above the law and look at what happened to_ him.


End file.
